


This Race is a Prophecy

by 1719



Series: The Boy Who Ran [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Astrophysics, BAMF Five, Bejamin Franklin, Ben is a little shit, Electricity, Five Loves His Siblings, Five hates Reginald Hargreeves, Five is a genius, Five's family is his weakness, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Science, but mostly Six and Seven, gratuitous use of commas, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1719/pseuds/1719
Summary: “Sonata II in E Minor.” Five said without looking back, and he heard Ben chuckle.“F Minor. But close.” Ben tossed back, and Five swiveled around, staring at him incredulously.“That’s not even a real key, dumbass.”“Yes it is! Seven, tell him, F minor is so a real key-”“Both of you shut up, you’re both wrong anyway."-Five begins preparations for his escape, and he'd be damned if he was leaving people behind.





	This Race is a Prophecy

“You may be wondering why I’ve gathered you here today” Five stated as he paced in front of Six and Seven, both of them looking up at him from their places on the floor. It was four in the morning, the safest time Five could think of for this meeting. Reginald monitored their sleep patterns until he went to bed at three am, and Mom didn’t start making her rounds until five. Five had disabled the security cameras in all three of their rooms, replacing them with a repeating loop of them sleeping peacefully in their beds. 

 

“You promised me you’d give me the books you stole from the library.” Six muttered, and without breaking stride Five tossed him a biography of Neil Armstrong from his pocket. 

 

“It has come to my attention that the three of us will share a common goal in the near future.” Five chose his words carefully, trying not to reveal too much too abruptly. 

 

“What do you mean?” Seven asked sleepily, and Five sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glancing out the window at the night sky.

 

“Dad’s training is getting worse the closer we got to our ‘big public debut.’ He hasn’t gotten to you yet Six, and Seven if my suspicions are correct you’re going to be used as  _ motivation _ ,” Five spat the word out, “for us to push ourselves harder.”

 

“What do you mean, motivation?” Six asked, casting a worried glance at Seven. 

 

“She’s going to be put in danger, and we’re going to have to save her using our abilities. We fail, she gets hurt.” Five said flatly, and Seven sighed, resigned. 

 

“He’s already made Two throw knives all around me, he nicked my ear, see?” She pushed back a strand of hair to show a scabbed over cut in the cartilage of her ear, and Six winced in sympathy as Five scowled. “He wasn’t too worried about it though.”

 

“Bastards, both of them. But back to my original statement. I need your help.” Five declared, stopping his pacing to look both of them in the eye. “I’m getting out of here. Our so-called father is a monster, and I don’t wanna stick around to see how accurate that is. I’ve selected the two of you because you have the most risk of adverse treatment in this house, and unlike daddy dearest I have feelings. Are you in?”

 

“Yes.” Six agreed immediately, grabbing a pillow to squish over his abdomen. Whenever he got stressed or worked up the monsters inside of him seemed to get agitated, and Five felt a stab of remorse for dumping all of this on him at once. 

 

“But how? And why do you need our help, you could just jump away.” Seven pointed out, and Five nodded at her, thankful she was asking the right questions. 

 

“Excellent point. I could just jump away. But knowing Dad, he would find a way to track me and drag me back. I need your help because besides you both wanting to leave, you are the most intelligent people in this house besides myself, and I’ll need new brains to bounce ideas of for my plan.”

 

“Which is?” Six asked, leaning forwards with an excited gleam in his eyes. A lot of people missed that about Six, outwardly he seemed to be timid and withdrawn but once you got past that he was a snarky and adventurous little shit. 

 

“Time travel. I’ve done it once, and I can do it again.” Five grinned, and Seven’s eyebrows flew up as Six dropped his pillow. 

 

“You time travelled? When?! How?!” Six demanded, and Five winced at his volume, quickly glancing at the door to make sure they weren’t discovered. 

 

“Private training a few days ago, remember when Pogo had to go pick me up? I jumped three miles and sixteen hours into the future.” He explained, skirting around explaining exactly  _ how _ he had managed the jump. 

 

“Dad told us all you tried to run away.” Seven said evenly, and Five sighed, detecting the hurt in her voice. “We didn’t see you for two days after that.”

 

“I wouldn’t leave without telling anyone, and I wouldn’t leave without you two. I told Dad I jumped two blocks then kept running before giving up and calling him. There’s no way I’m going to risk telling him what actually happened, I’m not giving the crazy bastard any more information about me that he already has.” He explained. “And when I got back he locked me in the basement and we had a good old interrogation session. He didn’t believe my story, but I stuck to it. Eventually, he had to give up.” Seven nodded, accepting his answer. She pulled her pill bottle out of her pocket and habitually dry swallowed a pill, and Five narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

 

There was something suspicious about a man who would physically abuse his children but give anxiety medication to the ‘ordinary’ one. He’d have to investigate more about that later, but right now he had to prioritize. 

 

“So what exactly do you need from us? We’re both in,” Six looked at Seven who nodded, “but what can we do to help?”

 

“Here’s the thing. I was only able to time travel under extreme duress, and I have no idea how I did it or how to recreate it. I need to figure out how to do it at will. No way in hell am I asking Dad for help, so that’s where you two come in. 

 

“I have multiple theories that I need to test, but a few of them involve electricity, and I can’t electrocute myself without risking killing myself. I’ll need one of you to help with that, was well as acting as a sounding board.” Five listed, taking a breath to continue before Six interrupted.

 

“Is that what Dad was doing to you when you time traveled? Electrocuting you?” He asked quietly, and Seven sucked in a sharp breath and stared at Five with wide eyes.

 

“Irrelevant.” Five replied dismissively, pushing all thoughts of that morning out of his head. “What is important is what we do moving forward. I realize that assisting me will pose risk to both of you, so I offer collateral. I’ll sneak both of you out of here whenever you want, no questions asked, and cover for you while you’re gone. Once I master jumping more I’ll be able to jump you guys with me, but for now we’ll stick to good old fashioned climbing down the fire escape. Sound good?” Five offered, and both of his sibling’s faces lit up.

 

“Deal. But Five, you’re getting us out, honestly that’s all we need.” Seven said, exchanging glances with Six, who nodded agreement.

 

“Yeah dude. Just give us a time and we’ll be there.” Six grinned, leaning forward in anticipation of the challenge, and Seven nodded, a small smile on her face as well. 

 

“Excellent. Now let’s begin.”

 

-

 

“So you can  _ see  _ the time-space continuum?” Six questioned, sitting on Five’s bed and squinting at him in the dim lighting.

 

“Well, I have no proof that that’s actually what I can see, but no one has pictures to prove me wrong, so yes, yes I can.” Five nodded distractedly, erasing part of his equation on the wall with his sleeve and scribbling a correction.

 

“Wicked.” Six breathed, and Five’s smile quirked, basking in the admiration. “So what does it look like?”

 

“Have you ever seen a mesh plot?” Five asked, continuing at Six’s nod. “It’s kind of like that. I can see this grid draping itself over every surface. When I jump, I basically focus enough that I can see the grid, then reach out and rip a hole in it and slip through. Ever since I jumped in time I’ve started to see these kind of wavy tendrils floating around, and I think they have something to do with time, but I’m not sure, I need more evidence.”

 

“What about open air? Like you said you can see the grid across every surface, what about just empty space? Because that’s what you’re jumping through.” Six pointed out, and Five paused to weigh his words.

 

“That I’m not sure how to describe. There’s still a grid, I think, but it’s not as rigid, it’s like-” He broke off, frustrated.

 

“Take your time. Sort out your thoughts.” Six said patiently, and Five blew out a breath.

 

“It’s almost like the air becomes tangible, and I can reach out and just pull through it.” Five tried to explain again. Six nodded, satisfied with his answer. Five turned back to the wall, staring at his equations. The premise of quantum teleportation held promise, but seeing as Five was a bit bigger than an atom most the theory couldn’t be applied. Scowling, he scribbled down a few more variable approaches, almost snapping the chalk in frustration. Why couldn’t his power just be straightforward like One’s? 

 

“So how do you control where you appear?” Six asked, and Five cocked his head, the chalk halting.

 

“I suppose I never really thought about it. When I rip through initially, I just think about where I want to go, and then I just go through and I’m there. If I don’t have a particular destination in mind I just appear in a random location, the distance depending on how much energy I put into the jump.” Five turned and faced Six, frowning. “I should have considered that, it just seems to natural to me at this point I didn’t even consider intention as a factor.”

 

“That’s what I’m here for man.” Six smiled, picking up one of Five’s textbooks on general relativity. “So what’s your working theory?”

 

“On spatial jumps? I have a few. Currently, the frontrunner is I somehow generate a contained Schwarzschild black hole and slip through the center.” Another equation erased, another piece of chalk snapped. “Which explains why when electricity was added, something different happened.”

 

“Why.” It wasn’t a question, but a demand. 

 

“Schwarzschild black holes are the simplest type of black holes, with no electricity or angular momentum, and they have mass.  That would explain why I don’t need an initial or final velocity to my jumps-”

 

“-And why the electric current made your jump go sideways through time, not space.”

 

“Exactly. Additionally, to support the contained black hole theory, I can’t backtrack through jumps. Once I’m through, I’m through, I have to tear another hole if I want to go back. That aligns with the point of no return for general black holes.”

 

“And the counter argument?”

 

“It’s a motherfucking black hole. Humans aren’t built to survive black holes. And how the hell am I even generating a black hole in the first place?”

 

“To be fair I don’t think you’re generating it, I think you’re just opening a doorway into one.”

 

“Point taken.”

 

“So how are you going to figure it out?”

 

“Tests. Research. Experiments.” 

 

“So what the hell are you waiting for?”

 

-

 

Five panted, doubling over as cramps wracked his body, his father’s footsteps retreating down the basement hallway. 

 

“ _ Shit _ .” He hissed, battling down another wave of nausea as he tried to stay on his feet, blinking spots out of his eyes. 

 

Seventy three consecutive jumps in under a minute. He beat his old record by fifteen jumps, but that still hadn’t satisfied the bastard. Although if he was honest his father wouldn’t be satisfied until he single handedly saved the world from an apocalypse, and even then he’d criticize his approach. 

 

“Oh god.” He groaned, another wave of weakness forcing him into his hands and knees, his vision swimming. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to push away the claustrophobic feeling of the tendrils wrapping around him, suffocating him and trying to drag him in-

 

“Hey, you’re ok, you’re good, we got you.” Two bodies were suddenly besides his, supporting him. A bottle of water was pushed into his line of vision. He waved it away, focusing on breathing deeply until his stomach settled and his vision cleared. 

 

“Shit.” He sighed, spitting on the ground and slowly straightening up, an arm around his shoulders assisting him.

 

“Are you ok?” Seven asked, and he glanced over at her, worry painted clearly across her face. 

 

“Fine. I’ll take that water now.” He said, accepting the water bottle from her and quickly draining half of it. He glanced over to see Six with his arm around Five’s shoulders, a worried frown on his face. 

 

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Six said quietly, and Five raised an eyebrow. 

 

“Well bring it up with daddy dearest, he’s the one who’s encouraging me.” Five said dryly, capping the water bottle and glancing at his brother. 

 

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I figured out the timing, I’m not dumb, Five.” Six hissed, glaring at him. 

 

“I wouldn’t associate with you if you were.” Five shrugged, but before he could continue his knees buckled, and Six caught him before he could fall completely. Seven hurriedly helped lower him to the ground, and Five stifled a groan, his stomach rebelling again. 

 

“I think we can add merit to the black hole theory, my insides definitely feel like they’ve been compressed and stretched to infinity and back.” Five groaned, and Seven glanced at Six. 

 

“Go get him something with a high carb count, I’ll make sure he doesn’t pass out.” She ordered quietly, and Six nodded and hurried away. 

 

“He’s gone, you don’t have to keep up the act. But isn’t there a better way to help that doesn’t involve you basically killing yourself? You look terrible.” Seven asked, and Five sighed, shaking his head. 

 

“If there was one, I would take it. But this is the best way. When it comes to Six’s turn for training I piss Dad off enough for him to punish me, then I brag to One about Dad giving me extra training, then One goes to Dad and requests more training, which makes Two want more training, then Three thinks sits her turn to train and Six’s session is effectively delayed by at least a week, more if I can keep the cycle going.” Five explained, and Seven nodded, glancing down the hallway. 

 

“Makes sense. I wish there was something I could do to help.” She muttered, and Five pushed himself up so he was facing her, taking her hands. 

 

“You are helping. I’d probably be passed out on the ground if it wasn’t for you and Six, who knows how long I would’ve been lying here.” Five said, squeezing her hands. Seven squeezed back, but she looked unconvinced. 

 

“I guess that’s the best I can do for being  _ ordinary _ .” She spat the word out like a curse and Five sighed, but before he could continue he heard Six’s footsteps rapidly approaching from down the hall. 

 

“Here, it’s the first thing I could find.” Six panted, and Five took the offered plate, cocking an eyebrow at its contents.

 

“Are those  _ marshmallows _ ?” Seven asked incredulously, and Five gingerly peeled off the top slice of bread to confirm that yes, there were marshmallows on top of the peanut butter. 

 

“You said high carb count! Plus this has protein!” Six defended his creation, and Five gingerly held half the sandwich up to his mouth and took a bite, his eyes widening immediately with shock. 

 

“What the hell this is  _ good _ .” He mumbled through the peanut butter, and Seven wrinkled her nose at his lack of manners. 

 

“Wait really?” Six laughed, reaching down and snagging the other half and taking a bite. “Wait, no, this is disgusting!”

 

“No it’s good!” Five protested, swallowing his mouthful and glaring at Six with reapproach. “You just have no taste.”

 

“Let Seven try, see what she thinks.” Six offered his half to Seven, who frantically shook her head. 

 

“No, God no, I’m not eating that.” She laughed as Five took another huge bite. Six narrowed his eyes and lunged, trying to shove the sandwich in Seven’s face, who shrieked with laughter and tried to get away. 

 

Five watched the chaos unfold, smiling as he chewed through Six’s creation. The cramps were slowly subsiding, his vision refocusing. 

 

They were going to make it. 

 

-

 

“Why do you have to tear through?” Seven questioned, and Five paused, chalk halting halfway through Euler’s equation. Sixty six hours no sleep and he was doing  _ fantastic _ . 

 

“Explain.”

 

“You always say you have to tear through the surface, which is why you need your hands or to move to jump. But what if you didn’t have to tear?” Seven explained, and Five dropped his chalk and jumped to sit cross-legged on his bed across from Seven. 

 

“Elaborate.”

 

“You said you see a grid, right? So what if instead of ripping through it, you just manipulated the tendrils around you until they kind of swallow you and you jump.” Seven tried to clarify, and Five frowned thoughtfully. 

 

“So instead of going towards the hole, create the hole around me and let the gravitational force suck me in.” He said slowly. Seven nodded eagerly, but Five held up a hand before she could say anything else. “Shut up. Let me concentrate.”

 

Five narrowed his eyes, the grid instantaneously appearing in front of him. Instead of reaching out and yanking apart the tendrils, he started focusing on drawing them towards him, gathering them around him, then nudging them apart and stretching them until they formed a barrier around him. 

 

“You’re glowing blue.” Seven’s hushed voice faintly broke into his thoughts, but Five brushed it aside in favor of trying to picture himself being enveloped by the tendrils until he felt them wrapping around him, then the familiar cooling sensation that meant he was jumping-

 

“What the hell?!” Six shouted, throwing his book across the room as Five tumbled onto his bed, landing on Six’s legs. 

 

“It worked! It worked!” Five gasped, scrambling off Six’s bed and running both hands through his hair. “I did it!”

 

“I don’t give a fuck about what you did, it’s two am and it’s Seven’s turn to babysit you, get out!” Six yelled, and Five raised his hands in surrender, laughing. 

 

“Even your pissy mood can’t bring me down Number Six.” Five laughed again, focusing on wrapping the tendrils around him again and he was back in his own room, sitting right where he left Seven. 

 

“Seven, you’re a genius!” He grinned, lunging forward and wrapping her in a hug. 

 

“Oh thank god, I was so scared my idea killed you and you were lost in the time-space abyss forever.” Seven gasped, returning his hug. 

 

“This is a huge breakthrough, you just gave me so much more time to focus on time travel, thank you.” Five rambled into her shoulder, and Seven just squeezed tighter, burying her face in his shoulder. 

 

-

 

“Alright, light me up.” Five ordered, trying to conceal the waver in his voice, hands clenching the arms of the wooden chair he was sitting in. 

 

It had taken a while, but Five had slowly gathered the materials to create his own variation on the electric chair, minus the straps holding him in place. After weeks of unsuccessfully trying to jump forward in time Five had figured it was time to bite the bullet and go back to a method that had proven effective. 

 

His work is correct. He is in control. 

 

It would be fine. 

 

“This is a horrible idea.” Six interrupted his thoughts, and Five sighed and glared at him. 

 

“Will you fucking electrocute me before I get Four to do it? You know he would, he’d probably laugh the entire time.  _ God _ , he’s nuts.” Five muttered the last part to himself, shaking his head. Three days ago he had to put out yet another chemical fire in Four’s room before it got out of hand. God knows where he got the chemicals. 

 

Six buried his face in his hands, groaning. “I’ve been against this idea since you first brought it up. How about you just stick a fork in a socket like the rest of us, it’ll be safer, and  _ wow _ I never thought that that was a sentence that would make sense ever.” He looked up, glaring at Five “See what you’ve done to me.”

 

“I’ve triple checked the mechanisms, it’ll be fine. All you have to do is turn the knob to fifteen for ten seconds, then turn it off. It’s so simple Number One could do it.” Five shoved his tie into his mouth and checked the metal plates attached to the sides of his temples. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on this exact location six hours in the future. After a minute with nothing happening, he opened his eyes and glared at Six, who was still fiddling with the controller anxiously. 

 

“Get on with it!” Five spat the tie out to snap at him, making Six jump and drop the controller. 

 

“This is an awful idea!” He protested, and Five ground his teeth. 

 

“Look. The sooner I figure out how to time travel the sooner we can get out of here. And besides, I’d rather have you do it than Dad.” 

 

Six sighed and picked up the dial, glancing nervously between it and Five, who glared and gestured for him to get on with it as he stuffed his tie back in his mouth. 

 

“Jesus Christ.” Six muttered and turned the dial. The device popped and Five slammed his eyes shut, anticipating the shock.

 

When nothing happened he cracked an eye open, not sure what to expect. 

 

But Jesus  _ Christ _ this wasn’t it. 

 

Six’s hair was standing on end, a faint burning smell filling the air. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish. 

 

“Oh my god.” Five muttered, ripping the tie out of his mouth and racing over to Six’s side, the metal plates on the sides of his temple peeling off as he scrambled out of the chair to Six. Five grabbed the controller out of Six’s clenched fingers and threw it across the room, crouching in front of him so he could examine his pupils. “Six, can you hear me?”

 

Six nodded numbly, staring at Five. Before he could say anything someone yanked open Five’s door, and both brothers swung around to stare at the doorway. 

 

“What the hell was that noise? I was lifting and you totally threw off my groove.” Number One complained, and Five and Six exchanged wide eyed glances, not sure how to explain the literal electric chair in the middle of Five’s room. 

 

“Six stuck a fork in a socket.” Five blurted out, and Six gaped, spluttering indignantly. 

 

“I did not!” He protested, but One looked him up and down disbelievingly and rolled his eyes. 

 

“Keep your nerd experiments down next time.” He ordered, turning and slamming the door behind him. 

 

“Are you serious?” Six hissed as soon as the door shut. “I stuck a fork in an outlet? How dumb do you think I am?”

 

Five grinned. “Smart enough for you to recognize that that was a brilliant excuse on short notice. Now come on Benjamin Franklin, let’s figure out what went wrong.”

 

-

 

“Beeeeeeeeeen.” Seven whined, and Ben glanced over at her, an eyebrow cocked. 

 

“That’s not my name.” He complained, but a smile stayed quirked on his lips. 

 

One good thing had come out of Five’s failed experiment. When Seven has heard that Five called Six Benjamin Franklin, the nickname stuck. He claimed to hate it, but every time Five or Seven used it Ben smiled, which only encouraged them to keep going. 

 

But unfortunately, after that malfunction Ben refused to help Five with any more experiments involving electricity. Frustrating, but inevitable. 

 

So Five’s attempts to time travel had come to a standstill. He kept calculating and theorizing, but none of that did any good if he couldn’t put it into practical use. 

 

“When are you going to be done with that book? Five is in his freaky mind palace and I’m bored, Three took my violin.” Seven complained. Five glanced up, frown on his face. 

 

“Where’d she put it?” 

 

“Probably in her room, wait Five don’t-” But Five was already in Three’s room, standing on her makeup table. He quickly spotted Seven’s violin on top of her dresser and grabbed it, warping back to his own room. 

 

“Here.” He tossed it to Seven, immediately returning to staring at the equations on the wall. He was missing something obvious, he had to be. 

 

“Play something.” He heard Ben tell Seven as Five scanned his dissection of the entropy of space, and violin music began playing, softly at first, but gaining power as she got into the music. 

 

“Sonata II in E Minor.” Five said without looking back, and he heard Ben chuckle. 

 

“F Minor. But close.” Ben tossed back, and Five swiveled around, staring at him incredulously. 

 

“That’s not even a real key, dumbass.”

 

“Yes it is! Seven, tell him, F minor is so a real key-”

 

“Both of you shut up, you’re both wrong anyway. It’s in G minor. Five, go back to your equations and Ben go back to your book and just enjoy the music.” Seven laughed, halting her playing to scold her brothers. 

 

“Fine.” Five muttered, turning back around to stare at his dissertation. Assuming Boltzmann’s formula is correct...

 

He lost himself in numbers and theories, Seven’s playing fading into the background. Five was dimly aware of Seven swaying to her music, Six absorbed in his book on Five’s bed. 

 

It was a good afternoon. 

 

-

 

“Alright. Alright, let’s do this.” Five shook his head, trying to garner enough momentum to go through with the most batshit crazy idea he’s had so far. “C’mon, you got this, just  _ do it _ .”

 

And before he could reconsider, Five stabbed his fork into an electrical outlet. 

 

He felt the electricity course up his arm, and he squeezed his eyes shut and gathered the time space tendrils around him, focusing on the wavy lines between the grid, trying to draw them towards him, he just needed to jump a few hours, and he reached out and  _ yanked _ -

 

He blinked his eyes open, a blue glow fading from his hands. He was still standing in his room, but it was dark out. 

 

Holy shit. It was dark out. 

 

It had just been two in the afternoon and  _ it was dark out _ .

 

“I did it.” He whispered to himself, then laughed out loud. “I did it!” 

 

He spun around, ignoring the numbness in his left arm, it was a necessary sacrifice. Alright, so it wasn’t ideal that in order to time travel he had to stick a fork in an electrical outlet, but  _ still _ . 

 

He did it, he was one step closer to getting him and his siblings out of this fucking hellhole. 

 

Five staggered over to his window, shoving it open so he could lean out into the darkness. 

 

“I’m almost free.” Five whispered into the night, and the stars shone down, waiting for him to join them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not as much science as I wanted, but at some point I figured I'd have to put the math away and get on with the plot development.
> 
> Part 2/5, and I'm sure y'all can guess where this is going.
> 
> Let me know what you think, I'm always open to suggestions and requests as long as they're not idiotic.
> 
> Cheers, see you crazy bastards next time.


End file.
